Why Don’t I Love My Baby?
Why don’t I love my baby?
“Who is this strange little being lying on my chest?”
“You don’t feel familiar.”
For 9 months I have longed to meet you and see your face, yet I look down at you and wonder to whom you belong. “You don’t feel like you are mine.”
I thought I would instantly fall in love with you but I’m not! Something must be wrong with me. I’m a bad mom. How can I not love my newborn babe?
This frightening scenario happens all too often for new moms. When new moms suffer disconnection from their baby, something traumatic has happened during the birth process. I call this a traumatic response. In the pelvis, energy gets stuck and locked up. This can lead to urinary leakage, difficulty with bowel movements, pain with intercourse, a general feeling of ungroundedness or not feeling like yourself. Most heartbreakingly of all this traumatic response can block the bonding process between babe and mom leaving her to feel like a bad mom.
I got to experience first hand the healing that can happen when moms get the support they need to unlock this energy and fall deeply in love with their baby.
Sue (name has been changed) came to see me 2 weeks after the birth of her second baby, a boy. She was complaining about not feeling as connected to this baby as she was to her first baby, a daughter she delivered 2 years ago. She fell instantly in love with her daughter who ended up being a very easy baby. Her son was a totally different story. He was very fussy and was having difficulty digesting his meals.
I asked Sue about the difference she experienced between her two births. She reported that this second baby had a much more difficult time coming out. Her first birth was uneventful and progressed smoothly. As Sue described her experience with the second birth there were several points during the process where she experienced a traumatic response.
At one point during the first stage of labor, the baby got stuck and Sue wasn’t progressing. Her intelligent, intuitive doula had her get into a position to help reposition the baby, and then things were able to progress. Before that repositioning though, Sue doubted her ability to continue. Any doubt in your ability to birth can trigger a traumatic response. We can avoid this traumatic response when we work with a conscious birth professional who can help us give voice to our doubts and move beyond them.
When Sue was in the hospital feeling the need to push, the nurses and staff were telling her to hold off because the doctor wasn’t there yet, even though her body was doing it anyway! This is an interruption to the flow of the birthing energy. Trying to resist the incredible urge that your body is automatically doing is traumatic because you can’t!
As I tuned into Sue’s energy field it was very “buzzy” and full of static. There wasn’t any calmness around her in her field. The energy in her pelvic space was frozen and locked up. Sue’s baby felt very rigid and tense and wasn’t settled. Both Sue and baby were ungrounded and disconnected.
As we gently cleared the trauma and reprocessed the birth Sue joyfully reconnected back into her body.
After our session, Sue felt more grounded, calm and connected. As she breastfed her baby tears started flowing as she said, “I finally feel like he’s mine. This is the first time I will be able to bring my baby home with me.”
Sue’s confidence in her mothering of this new babe was restored. She left my office with more love for her baby and the ability to be a better mom.
If you are struggling with any of this, please reach out to Jeni or I at the Institute for Birth Healing or check our Directory for any Practitioner who has taken my Advanced Postpartum course. You can also schedule a Skype session with Jeni or I and we can get you unblocked, more connected to your baby so you can be the mom you were meant to be!